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The Twofold Task of Union

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A Correction to this article was published on 16 November 2019

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Abstract

Love is practical, having to do with how we live our lives, and a central aspect of its practical orientation is the wish for union. Union is often considered in two forms—as a union of affections and as union in relationship. This paper considers both sorts of union and argues for their connection. I first discuss the union of interests in terms of the idea of attentive awareness that is focused upon the beloved individual and his or her concerns, life, and history. I then discuss union in relationship and show how this emerges from the attentive awareness in a desire to specify a determinate way of responding to the concerns that attentive awareness opens us to. I use the example of Jane Austen’s Emma throughout; the conduct of Austen’s heroine, who fails badly at loving well, shows by means of anti-example what is at stake in pursuing union as well as illustrating the close connection between the two aspects of union.

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Change history

  • 16 November 2019

    The original version of this article unfortunately contained an error. In footnote 1, the ���[My 2013]��� and ���[My other 2013]��� should be updated.

  • 16 November 2019

    The original version of this article unfortunately contained an error. In footnote 1, the ���[My 2013]��� and ���[My other 2013]��� should be updated.

Notes

  1. This idea of love as involving persistent concern with someone or something over time is developed in both [my 2013] and [my other 2013] and owes something to Harry Frankfurt’s work on both care and love. See Frankfurt’s The Reasons of Love (2004) for a representative example of his view.

  2. Kyla Ebels-Duggan, “Against Beneficence: A Normative Account of Love,” Ethics 119:1: 142–170, at 144.

  3. Nicomachean Ethics 1156a3.

  4. Nicomachean Ethics 1171b1.

  5. E.g., Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 28, A.1; and I-II, Q. 26, A. 2, Reply Obj. 2.

  6. Harry Frankfurt (2004), 61.

  7. E.g., Nicomachean Ethics 1156a3.

  8. E.g., Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 28, A.1; and I-II, Q. 26, A. 2, Reply Obj. 2.

  9. Emma, 27.

  10. Emma, 62.

  11. Emma, 26.

  12. Emma, 63.

  13. See Paul Taylor (1986).

  14. Gerald Postema suggested this way of phrasing the idea.

  15. Emma, 402.

  16. Emma, 337.

  17. “Love as a Moral Emotion,” 361.

  18. See Harry Frankfurt (2004), 43.

  19. Ebels-Duggan, “Against Beneficence: A Normative Account of Love,” 156.

  20. Velleman, “Love as a Moral Emotion,” 361–362.

  21. Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky, p. 204; quoted in Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness, 82n1.

  22. Emma, 26–7.

  23. Emma, 62.

  24. Emma, 482. We might question certain aspects of its amending.

  25. A failure foreshadowed in the “long-forgotten memory” of the “tormenting thought that refused to take shape” on his long walk in the mountains during his first year in the sanitarium, when he was still an “idiot” (Dostoevsky 2002).

  26. The Idiot, 592.

  27. Susan Wolf suggested this possibility.

  28. Heraclitus, fragment 15 (τοῖς ἐγρηγορόσιν ἕνα καὶ κοινὸν κόσμον εἶναι, τῶν δὲ κοιμωμένων ἕκαστον εἰς ἴδιον ἀποστρέφεσθαι).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Alexander Jech

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  1. Alexander Jech
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Correspondence to Alexander Jech.

Additional information

Many have assisted in the writing of this paper, but I wish especially to mention the help of Sahar Akhtar, Talbot Brewer, Megan Fritts, Loren Lomasky, Gerald Postema, Susan Wolf, and two anonymous referees.

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Jech, A. The Twofold Task of Union. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 17, 987–1000 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-014-9502-3

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